Both. @sandmanCCL talked up wands recently, so I've been using them a bit more.
Potions too, although they tend to collect. I mean, there's a few of them that don't have obvious, niche uses. (I can see a Potion of Fortitude being useful, but exactly when?).
I tend to hoard things for bigger fights, mages battles, and bosses. Then I'll use every single piece of inventory to give myself an edge.
New habit: Having Eldoth cast spells from scrolls in his quick slot. This works particularly well for spells that have scaling damage or effects (like missiles or the orb), because spells cast from scrolls in BG1 cast at a much higher level than the caster.
lol rexred I tried to do a similar thing. In bg1 I end up hoarding pretty hardcore (those wands of monster summoning, various good potions etc). But some stuff is OK to burn early on. My general rule is if I have 2 I can burn through the original and keep the other for the finale. I tend to stash all sorts of crap in the Feldpost Inn which is a nice central location, and then make a final bit stash in an inn in Baldurs Gate proper.
For instance, if you plan on resting more than once in dungeons , then you're more likely to not use your magical stuff.
I usually challenge myself to complete the quest without resting at all, which forces you to try out some tactics which may include using potions and wands, and it makes me feel it's less cheesy, since I'm just trying to survive . =D
I'm definetly a hoarder and not just with potions, scrolls and wands. I also don't like selling good equipment, even if it's, let's say, a magical chainmail and I have no bard in my party and I'm really not likely to use them.
But this got me thinking here, what you said. I remember doing Irencus's dungeon in BG2 without resting, since come on we are trying to get out of there asap, we are not going to lie down (ok, 1 rest at the beginning if I'm a mage/sorc since without any spells it's kinda hard...). So I think I'll give this approach a shot. It's definetly more realistic and I used to think about doing it this way, but I never considered using up my useable items. I basically never used spell scroll, I usually used them for bonus xp, but that's kinda cheesing too, isn't it? With BG:EE I'll defintely try doing this!
PS: I'm kinda shocked here, btw. I never thought there are so many "hoarders"
Hoarder here, but it would piss me off to backtrack to some remote place with a chest just so I could take 5 potions of win-battle. I usually keep a considerable amount of potions and wands in the inventory, rarely use them though. What's up with that? Stupid me.
Same here, though I'm trying really hard to become a "user" on my current playthrough of BG2. ;-)
I was a big-time hoarder during my first time through of the game. I was always preparing for harder and harder encounters where I thought I might need them. After finishing the game with wands taking up half of my wizard's inventory, I started using them more often, knowing there were plenty to spare.
In terms of firepower (literally), I just stopped memorizing AOE damaging spells, since there were so many fireball and lightning wands available. No point in memorizing Horror as well, with all the wands of fear. The wands of parlyzation made the game much easier as well. Eventually, I realized that I could play the game without needing to use many of my wizard's spells. I wonder if they're going to tone that down in BG:EE. There is a mod for Easy Tutu called "Hard Times" that drastically reduces the amount of magic items in the game, perhaps even too much.
(Especially since I never found a Magical Battle Axe for Kagain in the entire game, aside from the returning throwing axe--very irritating).
IWD was such a welcome contrast to BG in terms of the supply of magic items, especially scrolls. It definitely made it more challenging and required me to make it count if I used a potion or wand.
Definitely a hoarder. I finish the game with a massive backlog of scrolls, potions, etc. I use them in about 3 fights in the entire BGT saga. I have tried to increase usage so they don't go to waste but that doesn't last very long and I revert to just holding onto them in case I run out of spells.
It's harder to manage wands in vanilla BG1, because it doesn't give you the little number icon in the use item button to show you how many charges you have left. Playing BG1 in the BG2 engine will solve that problem automatically.
Wow. I never know that. I think, if i try to emulate true roleplaying with BG i'll chose the first option
Hoarder - I never use the good arrow/potions/wands because I always say to myself I will keep them to when I really need them.. ending the game with full inventory
The same with me. Hoarding them for 'when I might need them', than just forgetting I could use items as well in the heat of battle.
Only items I do regularly use are potions of strength and sometimes heroism and invulnerability to buff up my fighter before a fight. Once inside the fight, I forget everything but the spells. Took me some dozen playthroughs of Baldur's Gate before I started remembering to even use special abilities as well. Taking a Blade on a playthrough helped me remind of their usefullness.
(Especially since I never found a Magical Battle Axe for Kagain in the entire game, aside from the returning throwing axe--very irritating).
My answer :
In Baldur's gate city, in the North West area, there is an Inn (I forgot the name), but its a big one. There is a party next to the counter in the middle of the Inn. They are good guy, but when you talk to them, an evil party arrives and you can defy them. On the bodies of this party members lies an axe+2 "Axe of Surly the white minotaur".
I'm a terrible hoarder. I usualy take everything I can, just so it can rest in peace in my backpack I only use healing potions and antidotes... also arrows +1, which are quite common.
Wow so many hoarders, I used to be one long time ago, now I'm definately user. I even rely more on potions/wands/scrolls than on memorised spells, which makes battles more interesting in my opinion. I got bored of resting and using the same spells, so my party only rests when they are tired, even if the casters are out of memorised spells. The only item that I keep for special encounters is the oil of haste, which is the most powerful potion in the hands of a decent fighter.
Gonna come clean. The first step to the road to recovery is admitting you have a problem.
My name is Anduin and I am a user...
I just can't be bothered to carry all that stuff... I swig potions just for the hell of it... Put the baddest arrows in the slots first... Unload 50 charges from a wand of fire in one battle against Gnolls... I know. I need help...
I suppose I'd say I'm a mix of user and vendor. I keep the health potions and ammo to use, but other types of potions, wands, and scrolls of things my mage already knows (along with all divine scrolls) get sold at the first opportunity.
The one item I am partivularly guilty of doing this with are the mindflayer mind control collars you can get in the underdark. I even go so far as to turn into the slayer to open the doors, because I dont want to waste them. Of course they never get used ;_;
Also, the staff of fire elemtals goes into the off-slot of my wizard, but rarely gets used more than once or twice a game.
I will freely use healing potions where necessary, although if you find yourself eating them like candy then the fight is probably already a lost cause.
I dont really horde any other potions or wands, simply because I rarely even bother to pick them up, and if I do, its just to sell them afterwards.
Of course, if I have infinite stacking mods or bottomless containers installed, then I turn into a whole different animal...
I don't use wands very often. I think I used to hoard them when I first started playing BG. Nowadays I mostly just sell them. As for potions, I hoard healing potions, but tend to sell everything else. I don't seem to need them as much now and don't hoard them as often, but on my first ToB playthrough with my current PC, I had at least 150 healing potions per character in my party when I went to fight Amellissan. I actually built up to that number on purpose. It was a goal I'd set to have that many potions before I fought her. The drow always have healing potions, so I just rested in their area and fought them until I could hoard up enough of them to meet my quota.
As far as magical items, I used to hoard the ones I thought I might someday use and sold the rest. Now, I've played enough times that I pretty much know if I'm going to use something or not. I don't try as hard to get money from every single item like I used to do, and ignore most of the loot. The exception is if I'm trying to record how many enemies I've killed or something like that. In that case I collect some sort of special idenifying object from each type of enemy and store them in drawers according to type. For example, one time I attacked every Flaming Fist guy I came across and collected their helmets in a house in Beregost. I can't remember how many I ended up with, but it took about five minutes to scroll through them all. I guess that would qualify as hoarding.
Edit: I'm not sure if this counts as hoarding, but I've also brought NPCs with me sometimes just to use them as pack animals. I mean, these are generally weak characters that don't have much XP or usefulness. I give them one of the girdles of strength so they can carry a lot and then keep them out of the fights. Their sole purpose is to carry loot. Sometimes I pick characters that also have interesting banter, so they can contribute in other ways, but that's about it. In my current game my PC and Viconia are both 5th playthrough and are the characters I'm actually using in combat. I have another NPC, Sendai (on whom I used ctrl q), who is in her 3rd playthrough, and she hangs back to protect the pack animals if enemies get to close. The pack animals themselves (in this case Aerie, Jahiera, and Korgan) are all 1st playthrough characters. They have killed a collective total of 4 enemies in the game so far, whereas my PC alone has killed over 1,000. I'm using their inventory space for now since I don't have the bag of holding yet this game. Aerie doesn't even have a weapon. In battles I just have them stand in a corner somewhere with their 3rd playthrough guardian, Sendai, out in front to protect them while Evice (my PC) and Viconia do all the work. This is something new I've been trying recently.
I'm mostly a hoarder - I use healing potions and antidotes often, oils of speed and strength potions + wands in harder fights, but most of the rest gathers dust in the chest in Nashkell Inn or in a chest in the back of Jovial Juggler Inn in Beregost.
I'm a Halfling Thief with low strength and high dexterity.
In Berghost I break into every house and rob the peasants blind, filling my pack with rusty daggers, loose gold coins dropped behind the couch, multiple copies of the 'Histories of the Sword Coast', and lugging away multiple pairs of worn out stinky leather armor.
For the most part I find wands useless. Scrolls, if I like them I memorize them. A handful of more critical ones I keep for hard battles. Potions, honestly, I horde them. I use the heck out of heal potions, but always have to much.
Comments
Potions too, although they tend to collect. I mean, there's a few of them that don't have obvious, niche uses. (I can see a Potion of Fortitude being useful, but exactly when?).
I tend to hoard things for bigger fights, mages battles, and bosses. Then I'll use every single piece of inventory to give myself an edge.
New habit: Having Eldoth cast spells from scrolls in his quick slot. This works particularly well for spells that have scaling damage or effects (like missiles or the orb), because spells cast from scrolls in BG1 cast at a much higher level than the caster.
But this got me thinking here, what you said. I remember doing Irencus's dungeon in BG2 without resting, since come on we are trying to get out of there asap, we are not going to lie down (ok, 1 rest at the beginning if I'm a mage/sorc since without any spells it's kinda hard...). So I think I'll give this approach a shot. It's definetly more realistic and I used to think about doing it this way, but I never considered using up my useable items. I basically never used spell scroll, I usually used them for bonus xp, but that's kinda cheesing too, isn't it? With BG:EE I'll defintely try doing this!
PS: I'm kinda shocked here, btw. I never thought there are so many "hoarders"
In terms of firepower (literally), I just stopped memorizing AOE damaging spells, since there were so many fireball and lightning wands available. No point in memorizing Horror as well, with all the wands of fear. The wands of parlyzation made the game much easier as well. Eventually, I realized that I could play the game without needing to use many of my wizard's spells. I wonder if they're going to tone that down in BG:EE. There is a mod for Easy Tutu called "Hard Times" that drastically reduces the amount of magic items in the game, perhaps even too much.
IWD was such a welcome contrast to BG in terms of the supply of magic items, especially scrolls. It definitely made it more challenging and required me to make it count if I used a potion or wand.
Only items I do regularly use are potions of strength and sometimes heroism and invulnerability to buff up my fighter before a fight. Once inside the fight, I forget everything but the spells. Took me some dozen playthroughs of Baldur's Gate before I started remembering to even use special abilities as well. Taking a Blade on a playthrough helped me remind of their usefullness.
My answer :
I only use healing potions and antidotes... also arrows +1, which are quite common.
My name is Anduin and I am a user...
I just can't be bothered to carry all that stuff... I swig potions just for the hell of it... Put the baddest arrows in the slots first... Unload 50 charges from a wand of fire in one battle against Gnolls... I know. I need help...
Also, the staff of fire elemtals goes into the off-slot of my wizard, but rarely gets used more than once or twice a game.
I will freely use healing potions where necessary, although if you find yourself eating them like candy then the fight is probably already a lost cause.
I dont really horde any other potions or wands, simply because I rarely even bother to pick them up, and if I do, its just to sell them afterwards.
Of course, if I have infinite stacking mods or bottomless containers installed, then I turn into a whole different animal...
As far as magical items, I used to hoard the ones I thought I might someday use and sold the rest. Now, I've played enough times that I pretty much know if I'm going to use something or not. I don't try as hard to get money from every single item like I used to do, and ignore most of the loot. The exception is if I'm trying to record how many enemies I've killed or something like that. In that case I collect some sort of special idenifying object from each type of enemy and store them in drawers according to type. For example, one time I attacked every Flaming Fist guy I came across and collected their helmets in a house in Beregost. I can't remember how many I ended up with, but it took about five minutes to scroll through them all. I guess that would qualify as hoarding.
Edit: I'm not sure if this counts as hoarding, but I've also brought NPCs with me sometimes just to use them as pack animals. I mean, these are generally weak characters that don't have much XP or usefulness. I give them one of the girdles of strength so they can carry a lot and then keep them out of the fights. Their sole purpose is to carry loot. Sometimes I pick characters that also have interesting banter, so they can contribute in other ways, but that's about it. In my current game my PC and Viconia are both 5th playthrough and are the characters I'm actually using in combat. I have another NPC, Sendai (on whom I used ctrl q), who is in her 3rd playthrough, and she hangs back to protect the pack animals if enemies get to close. The pack animals themselves (in this case Aerie, Jahiera, and Korgan) are all 1st playthrough characters. They have killed a collective total of 4 enemies in the game so far, whereas my PC alone has killed over 1,000. I'm using their inventory space for now since I don't have the bag of holding yet this game. Aerie doesn't even have a weapon. In battles I just have them stand in a corner somewhere with their 3rd playthrough guardian, Sendai, out in front to protect them while Evice (my PC) and Viconia do all the work. This is something new I've been trying recently.
My name is Space Hamster.
I'm a Halfling Thief with low strength and high dexterity.
In Berghost I break into every house and rob the peasants blind, filling my pack with rusty daggers, loose gold coins dropped behind the couch, multiple copies of the 'Histories of the Sword Coast', and lugging away multiple pairs of worn out stinky leather armor.